The invention relates, in general, to clinical patient tables or support systems, and more particularly to a patient examination tabletop for a diagnosis and/or treatment system, such as a computed tomography or CT system.
One such patient examination support system is known for instance from German Patent Disclosure DE 101 08 549 A1.
During an examination of a patient by means of a tomography system, the patient can take various positions on a patient examination tabletop, characterized for instance by the designations “head first”, “feet first”, “face up”, and “face down”. Medical professionals, such as doctors, nurses, technicians, or the like, typically receive instructions on positioning the patient that are required for the examination in writing on a request form. Passing or communicating this information on to an x-ray technician is one possible source of error. In a most favorable case, an error may cause only additional expenditure of time for a required repositioning of the patient. If the error is discovered too late, however, the result can be an imaging examination that does not contribute to the diagnosis.